Instability of Goldreich-Julian configurations: Demonstrations based on the simulation of self-consistant magnetospheres for the static aligned case

Author

Thacker, Peter Delaney

Date

1999

Degree

Master of Science

Abstract

We demonstrate that the classic Goldreich-Julian neutron star magnetosphere is flawed. Firstly, we show that the Goldreich-Julian solution is not unique. Secondly, we demonstrate the instability of a truncated Goldreich-Julian magnetosphere by showing that such a magnetosphere will quickly collapse to a more stable configurations.
We further demonstrate that a "pure" Goldreich-Julian charge configurations can exist at small radii, but must be supported by a non-Goldreich-Julian magnetosphere at larger radii. Such configurations naturally form vacuum gaps and attendant charge-vacuum discontinuities.
Lastly, we show that pair production cannot be used as a saving mechanism to fill the vacuum regions in an aligned pulsar model. In conjunction with the existance of static aligned non-Goldreich-Julian magnetospheric configurations, this reinforces the argument that an aligned neutron star cannot be an active pulsar.